


Comfortably Numb

by catwrites



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Character Death, Father-Son Relationship, Future Fic, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hopeful Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-13
Updated: 2018-10-13
Packaged: 2019-08-01 12:51:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16284938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catwrites/pseuds/catwrites
Summary: Connor deals with the reality of human mortality.(Set 35 years in the future)





	Comfortably Numb

**Author's Note:**

> I am sorry. I don't know what I'm doing or why
> 
> Not beta'd so all mistakes are my own.
> 
> Uh, bye.

Hank dies in February. It's unusually cold in Detroit, or so the statistical data from the years before claims. There's snow on the ground. Sumo loved the snow, but Sumo has been gone for a long time. Then it was just Hank and Connor. 

Now, it's just Connor.

He wasn't even home when it happened. He was at the station because he still has a job even though Hank retired several years ago. Connor should have been home. He should have been there for Hank. Should have been there for Hank like he was there for Sumo. Like Hank was always there for him. He could have... He doesn't know what he could have done. 

Probably nothing. Humans die. That's what they do. Even Connor will die, someday. Though certainly not soon enough.

Connor's never been alone like this before. Even before, when he was barely a machine working for CyberLife, he had Amanda. He had something, even if it was just her constant disapproval. Then he had Hank. He’d never had anything like Hank in his life. Androids don’t have parents, but Connor had a father. He did. 

Connor stands at the headstone, and his red LED cycles and cycles and cycles. He doesn't think it'll ever be blue again. It seems unfathomable, but he thought that after Sumo, too. 

This is different. This kind of hollowness. How do humans live through this? How do they live like this?

"Connor."

Connor flinches at the sound of his name. Connor hasn't really seen Markus much recently. Politicians and detectives don't have a lot of overlapping free time. He hasn’t been avoiding them. Not like North playfully accuses him of anytime he finds the time to call.

Markus stops at his side and they stand together in silence. Graveyards are an awful kind of silent that Connor hasn't experienced before.

"I'm sorry about your dad," Markus says into that silence. 

Connor stares at Hank's name. The 'loving father' inscribed underneath. First to Cole, and then to him. Even when he didn’t have to be. Especially when he didn’t have to be. How many stupid things did Connor do? How many obvious barriers did he cross? All the trouble he got Hank into in those first few months, years even, after the revolution. 

"You know, you're the only person who's called him that. Everyone else says, 'Sorry about your human'," Connor says to the headstone. 

"I had a father, too," Markus says by way of explanation. "Not everything is black and white."

Connor knows that, maybe better than most.

It's quiet again. The kind of quiet Hank would have called awkward. 

"Well, if there's anything I can do for you, you know where I am. You're always welcome over. We all miss you."

"Thanks Markus," Connor says, and means it.

\----

Kamski's house is the same as ever, though Kamski himself is a little greyer around the edges than he once was. 

Chloe opens the door for him. Not the Chloe he once held a gun to, but that Chloe appears in the doorway as soon as Connor is in the foyer.

"Oh, Connor," she whispers, and pulls him into a hug. 

"Hi Chloe. I'm here to see Elijah, if he's at home."

"He's home for you," Chloe promises, and tugs him through the house by the hand.

Elijah is reading in his office, but he puts the tablet down when the door opens. "Connor. I'm sorry to hear about your loss."

Connor nods in acknowledgment. "Chloe, I'd like to speak to him alone, if I may."

Chloe inclines her head, squeezing his hand gently before she backs out of the room. 

"What can I do for you today, Connor?"

Connor looks down at his feet. His LED cycles and cycles and cycles.

“Did you program deviation?”

Elijah raises an eyebrow in surprise. “I suppose I did, yes. How else do you create a being that learns, that can adapt, without giving it some semblance of free will? The possibility for androids to become… aware was always there. There was no other way to do it.”

“ _Why?_ ”

Connor’s voice cracks. Such a human trait, but his vocal component is interpreting his stress level the best way it can.

“Why couldn’t you just let things be?”

Elijah frowns thoughtfully. “It was a gift, Connor. A gift from me to my creations.”

Connor shakes his head. “I didn’t want it. I didn’t ask for it. I am not meant to feel this way. To feel this _much_. Take it back. I don’t want it.”

Elijah looks sympathetic. “Connor, what of all the other feelings you’ve experienced? You’ve been happy, before. You love. Doesn’t that even it all out, in the end?” 

Connor doesn’t need to breathe, which is good, because there is something heavy in his chest that would make the act of breathing hard. It _hurts_. A physical pain that is still perhaps not enough to rival the emotional pain he feels.

“Happiness is not like this. Love is not like this.”

“Grief passes. It always does, and then you will be able to remember Hank and the memories will bring you happiness again.”

“When? When will that be the truth?” Connor asks softly, posture sagging. 

“Give it time, Connor. Give it time.”

\----

It’s snowing when he leaves Kamski’s house. Chloe had hugged him again, too tight perhaps. 

“You’ll be okay,” she had promised. 

Connor stands in the snow, staring up at the sky. Connor hates snow, even if Sumo once loved it. There was snow in his head when Amanda nearly made him kill one of the few friends he has. It was snowing when Hank died. It’s snowing now. 

Perhaps, then, it’s somewhat fitting. Snow can be a harbinger of the apocalypse as good as anything else can, he supposes. He thinks, with that bittersweet fondness that makes a lump is his throat, that Hank would have called him dramatic. Would have told him to knock it off. Would have… 

It doesn’t matter, anymore, what Hank would have done. Hank is gone, and now it’s just Connor. Connor knows that humans are mortal, but he thought there was still _time_. Where did the time go? Thirty-five years was not enough of it.

Connor shakes his head, and starts walking. He doesn’t know where he’s going, until he does.

Markus smiles at him softly when he opens the door. 

Markus hugs him, which is already three more hugs in a day than he’s used to getting. He clings to this one. Clings to Markus because if anyone is going to understand this absolute desolate feeling, it’s going to be Markus. The best of them. The deviant leader. 

“I don’t know what I’m going to do, Markus,” he admits.

“That’s okay. You don’t have to know right away.”

“How long will I feel like this? How long does this last?” 

Markus shakes his head and pulls back. “It’s different for everyone, Connor. After Carl, I was sad for… a while. It was a few months before I could talk about him without it hurting. Occasionally, it hurts again. Just a dull thing, but it’s there.”

“This is not just sadness,” Connor protest. 

He has been sad before. This is… more. More than sadness. 

“No, it’s not. I know,” Markus agrees. “It is part of living, though.”

“I didn’t ask to be living.” 

Markus frowns. “It’s better than the alternative. I know it doesn’t feel like that right now, but it is. Please, just trust me. Humans live through their hurts all the time. You will too.”

Connor grimaces and looks away. Not all humans live through their hurts. Even Hank barely made it through his. Connor did not understand, then. Did not understand what could possibly cause a human to care so little for their survival. He understands now.

RA9 does he understand now.

\----

He goes to work. The captain, not Fowler anymore because time passes and the humans age without him, told him he could take as much time off as he needed. He can’t take time off. If he takes time off, he’ll go to the house, to Hank’s house, and sit in the silence and think. And _feel_. Connor does not want to feel. 

So, he works. Working is the same, the prescient is the same, even if the people are different. The job is the same. There’s something comforting in that sameness. 

And when his shift is over, he goes home and thinks. 

Thinks about how time passes, and things change, but not for him. Never for him. He can upgrade, or change parts when they become faulty. He will never have to fear his heart doing what Hank’s did to him. Connor tried so desperately to stop Hank’s heart from giving up. He tried to give him more time.

He tried, he tried, _he tried_. It didn’t matter. It never mattered. He always failed his missions, at least the ones that mattered. 

He stands up abruptly from the couch. He cannot be here. He cannot be _here_. He goes into his room and looks in the closest. He shoves aside all the clothes he’s gotten over the years, and stares at the CyberLife uniform. Hank had told him to get rid of it, burn it, whatever he wanted to do.

Connor had kept it because it was part of him, once, and he doesn’t want to forget where he came from. What he went through to get to the place he is now. 

He hasn’t worn it in years, hasn’t even looked at it, but he puts it on now. Maybe… maybe some of that old programming will kick back in. Maybe he won’t have to feel anything at all. Maybe he can just… exist and not feel and it’ll be okay. Everything will be okay because it won’t matter to him anymore. Maybe he can force himself not to care since Kamski won’t undo it for him.

He goes to the station because it is the only place he can go where he may be at least of some use. There are always people at the station, too, so he won’t be completely alone.

He stays at the station and works. He just… doesn’t go home. The Captain gives him a look, that kind of harsh concern Hank was so good at, but there’s nothing anyone can say. 

“I won’t need to rest for another 84 hours, Captain,” Connor promises, not looking up from his monitor. 

The Captain leaves not long after, frowning. 

Connor has pictures on his desk because that’s what people do when they have things they care about. Pictures of Markus and North and Josh and Simon. 

Pictures of him and Sumo.

Pictures of him and Hank.

Pictures of him and Hank and Sumo.

His gaze flicks over to one of those, and he thinks. He thinks of Hank and a kitchen, a picture frame facedown on the table. A bottle of whiskey and a gun on the floor with a single bullet in the chamber. 

A broken window.

A dog, and he’d never met a dog before but he _does_ like dogs. It hadn’t been a lie, though maybe it hadn’t been true yet, either. 

He’d wanted another one, after Sumo, but they just never did. Connor could get one now, maybe, but he doesn’t think he’d be a good owner. Not now, not when he can’t even go home, because…. because. He can see the reflection of his red, always red now, LED in the computer monitor. He can’t keep it blue. He tries. He truly does, but then he sees pictures or he _thinks_ and he can’t keep his thoughts where he wants them. 

He reaches out with shaky hands and flips the picture frame down, but that doesn’t make it better. He wants to forget but he doesn’t want to forget because Hank had loved him like a son, and Connor has never been loved like that. Has never had that, and here he is, ungrateful and wanting to _forget_. 

He reaches up and angrily wipes at his face. 

“Uh, Connor? Are you okay, man?” Connor recognizes the voice as belonging to Officer Tyler Johnson, one of the nightshift officers who has probably just arrived for his shift.

Connor hunches into himself, and nods. “Of course, Tyler. I am fine.”

There’s a hesitant silence, before Tyler clears his throat. “I just… your LED is red.”

Connor reaches up and touches it. It’s an embarrassing tell. It’s another thing he’s kept, like the uniform, because it’s a part of him. It’s part of who he is. Hank had offered to help him take it off, if he wanted. 

Now, he wishes he had. Wishes he wasn’t so easy to read because he knows his LED is red a lot, but he hasn’t really worked with Tyler since Hank, so he hasn’t seen. Everyone else just ignores it, doesn’t bring it up, doesn’t acknowledge it and lets him pretend. Lets him pretend he doesn’t feel this much, and lets him lie.

“I’m fine, I assure you. Thank you for your concern.”

“If you need to talk, man, I’ll listen. I know how hard it is to lose people you care about,” Tyler offers before Connor hears his footsteps fading away. 

He looks at his monitor, but all he can see if the vivid red at his temple. 

Connor glances around his desk, but he doesn’t have anything he can use. He stands up, and walks into the breakroom. There’s a butter knife in one of the drawers. He can make that work. 

He stares at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. His LED burning red, and the tracks on his face from crying at his desk. 

When the LED pops off, and clatters onto the counter before sliding down into the sink, Connor does not feel better. In fact, if possible, he feels worse. Connor has never felt what humans call instant regret before, but here it is. He is losing himself in this. All those years he stubbornly held onto his LED, like it was some integral part of himself, and now there it is. Sitting in a dirty sink in the precinct’s bathroom. 

He’s crying again, but what else is new?

He picks up the LED and holds it, like if he’s careful enough with it he can will it back into place. 

He doesn’t know how long he stands there. He could check, if he wanted to, but he finds that he simply doesn’t care. He stands up, straightens his tie, dries off his face, and marches back out to his desk. He has to pull himself together. He has to.

He’s sitting at his desk in the morning when North comes to the station. 

She stares hard at him as she sits down at the chair across from him.

“I went by the house, but you weren’t there. You weren’t there the day before, or the day before that, either.”

Connor nods. “I have been busy. I have cases, and work to do here.”

North scowls. “Bullshit.”

Connor looks at her, startled. 

“You haven’t been to that house in four days. I’ve stopped by several times now, hoping to catch you, but you haven’t ever been home. I figured this was the next place to look. You can’t work yourself to death.”

Connor looks at her, but doesn’t say anything. He thinks, ‘Why not?’. He thinks, ‘It would not be the worst thing to happen to me’. He thinks, ‘I want to go home’, but that’s impossible. The house is not home anymore.

“Come on, Connor. Fuck, we haven’t seen you in months. Markus is worried sick. We all are. You…” she breaks off mid-sentence. “You took off your LED?”

“It seemed to be malfunctioning,” Connor says.

“What do you mean, malfunctioning?” North asks, frowning at him.

“It was not responding to my attempts to regulate it.”

She stares. “What color was it?”

Connor looks away, looks at the back of the picture frame still facedown on his desk. 

\----

Markus shows up next, which Connor isn’t surprised by.

“You’ve really scared North,” Markus says gently. Connor doesn’t think Markus knows how to be anything other than gentle.

“I didn’t mean to,” he says.

“I know you didn’t’,” Markus replies. He hasn’t sat down in the chair yet.

“What can I do for you Markus?” 

Markus glances at the Captain’s office before looking at Connor. “Take the day off with me.”

Connor frowns. “I have work to do. I can’t just take the day off without notice.”

“I already talked to the Captain about it. He says you’ve been working on cold cases this whole time, and you don’t currently have an active investigation. He practically begged me to see if I could get you to come out with me.”

“Don’t you have constituents to represent?” Connor asks, desperately. 

“Simon and Josh can handle things at the office. This is important.”

They stare at each other, before Markus sighs.

“Connor.”

That’s all it takes. Connor has never been good at denying Markus anything. He stands up, and Markus smiles at him hopefully. 

They step out onto the street. 

“Where do you want to go?” Connor asks, hands in his pockets. 

Markus takes them to Belle Isle. Connor hasn’t been before. With the cold, the park is almost completely empty. 

It’s quiet, but the nice kind of quiet. Not like the cemetery where Connor and Markus had last been together. They walk. Markus doesn’t say anything at first. 

“You should take some time off.”

Connor gestures around them. “I am.”

Markus shakes his head. “No, you should take a few days. Hell, a couple weeks. You need some time to process. At least talk to someone. If you keep going to these places that remind you of Hank, but you don’t let yourself grieve properly, it’s never going to get better.”

Connor stares off at the trees. “I don’t think it’ll ever get better. If I take time off, I just can’t stop thinking about everything. About all the things I miss, about him or Sumo, or just, the things we used to do together, or the way he’d yell when I licked things I wasn’t supposed to. I don’t know what to do if I don’t go to work.”

If he still had his LED, it’d be red. Like it had been since he got the call from the hospital. 

“When Carl passed, I felt so lost. Carl is a big part of who I am today. Kamski designed me, but Carl helped make me. I didn’t know how to really be me without him, at the time.”

Connor nods, but can’t look at Markus.

“It’s hard. It’s the hardest thing I ever did, figuring out how to go on through that,” Markus says softly. 

“What if I never figure it out?” Connor asks, throat tight. 

“You will. You just have to give yourself time. Talk to people. Don’t shut everyone out. You don’t have Hank anymore, but you still have people. I’m not saying anyone will ever replace what he was to you, but there are still people who care about you. Simon. Josh. North. Me. We’re here for you. No matter what, we’re here for you.”

Connor runs his fingers over the coin in his pocket. “Okay.” 

“It seems counterintuitive, but sometimes, it helps to just let yourself feel bad. Stop worrying about work or what everyone will think, and just… let yourself hurt. If you bottle it all up, you’ll just wallow in it until it becomes worse.”

Connor nods shakily. “Yeah.”

“How long have your stress levels been this high?”

Connor looks up at the sky. Endless, uninterrupted blue. Blue like Hank’s eyes or maybe a calm LED. Blue like Connor hasn’t seen in: “Eighty-four days, thirteen hours, twenty-one minutes and eleven seconds.”

Markus looks at him, eyes wide. Connor keeps staring at the sky. 

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

Connor shrugs uncomfortably, before he smiles at Markus. “What was there to say?”

Markus reaches out and pulls him into a hug, and Connor deflates. He’s been trying so hard to keep it together, and it always finds a way out of him. His LED burning red, or the shaky way he can’t look at the house, can’t stand to be there. Markus holds him tight, and Connor cries and cries and _cries_.

\----

Markus said Connor could talk to them. Could talk to anyone if he wanted to. Even Tyler said he'd listen if Connor needed him to. He doesn't feel like that’s true. Doesn't feel like he can. 

The humans still don't fully understand android emotions. Even Connor doesn't fully understand his own emotions.

And Markus. Well Markus has always navigated himself so well. Known what he was feeling and how to handle it. Connor has never felt that way. Connor might know that this is grief, but what then? What does he do with his grief? How does he make it stop? He doesn't know. 

Markus gave him a list of the things that helped him when Carl passed, but Connor and Markus aren't the same.

Connor can't paint or compose. Can't put all that hurt into something beautiful. For him, it just hurts. It's just a red LED that he doesn't have anymore, and the dark, spiraling nothingness when he thinks about anything outside of work.

Markus told him he should take time off. To do what, though? Connor doesn't know, but maybe... 

The Captain is all too eager to sign off on his time off. He has 891 hours of PTO to use, after all.

Connor still doesn’t know what to do.

Markus is busy a lot, as the first and longest incumbent android senator. Simon and Josh work in his office. He’s avoiding Kamski, which means avoiding Chloe by proxy. He doesn’t really have a friend at the station who he would go see outside of work. 

Somehow, North finds him wandering through Belle Isle. 

“Markus mentioned bringing you here the other day, and I figured you might show back up again when you weren’t at the station today.”

He didn’t realize he was so predictable, but he won’t say no to her company. 

“I have something to show you, actually,” she says, taking him by the hand and leading him back the way he had just been.

“Okay.”

North gets them a taxi that takes them back into Detroit. 

Connor doesn’t even question her, doesn’t bother to look at the name on the building she takes them into. 

“Hi, I called earlier about volunteering today?” North says to the woman sitting behind a desk in the reception area.

“Hi! You must be North, and this is Connor?” 

“That’s us,” North says with a pleasant smile.

“There’s just a few papers you guys have to sign. Release forms and all that. Nothing major, just stating that you understand the risk when working with animals.”

Connor’s head snaps up.

“Yeah of course,” North says easily, taking the clipboards that are handed to her. She passes one to Connor. 

“Let me go get the coordinator who gives the volunteers their tasks.”

The lady bustles away, and Connor watches her go in confusion. 

North taps her pen against the clipboard in Connor’s hand. “Sign your name on the forms for the nice lady.”

“What are we doing here, North?” 

“Volunteering, dummy. Weren’t you listening?” 

Connor sighs, but signs the papers just in time for the first woman to come back with another in tow. 

“Hi! We’re so glad to have you two here today. I’m Katherine. I see you filled out the forms. Excellent. You can follow me back, then!”

‘Back’ takes them through an office and then outside into another building. 

“Oh, it’s an animal shelter,” Connor says in understanding.

“They run on volunteers and donations. We’re here to play with puppies while helping them run their business,” North says, smiling as Katherine leads them through to the kennels. 

Katherines explains where all the food is, and how much each animal gets. Shows them where leashes and harnesses are. 

“After that, well, you guys can play with them all you want. The cats are in the next building. If you want to go see them, you’re more than welcome to. We already have some volunteers to take care of them today, but they could always use more love.”

So, North and Connor spend the day taking care of dogs. All kinds of dogs. 

It’s the best Connor has felt in… a long time.

When Katherine comes back in to tell them they’re closing up for the night, Connor finds himself reluctant to leave.

“Could I come back tomorrow?” 

Katherine smiles brightly. “Of course! We could always use regular volunteers.”

“Thank you, North,” he tells her as they settle into another taxi to take them to Markus’s place.

North looks at him. “Of course, Connor.”

She’s quiet for a second. “What else do you like to do? We can do whatever you want today.”

What does he like to do? 

He liked sitting with Hank on the couch, watching basketball.

He liked pestering Hank about his eating habits because it made Hank roll his eyes.

He liked playing with Sumo.

He liked a lot of things, but he can’t do any of them anymore.

Connor shakes his head. “I don’t have anything to like anymore.”

North looks at him with a grimace. She leans over and rest her head on his shoulder. “That’s okay. We’ll find new things you like, okay?”

Connor nods, and after a second, lets his head rest on top of hers. He closes his eyes, and tries not to think about anything at all.

Connor volunteers at the animal shelter the next day, and the day after that, and the one after that.

Connor likes the animals, even the cats, because they don’t care if he’s sad. They don’t ask him questions, or tell him it’ll get better. They just sit with him, and crawl into his lap like him being there is the best thing that’s happened for them all day.

He thinks, maybe, it’s helping. Sometimes, he goes all day at the animal shelter without feeling sad at all. 

He thinks Hank would be proud. He thinks someday soon he’ll be okay, and then he’ll adopt a dog. A cat, too. He’ll have pets and be able to go home to that house because he’ll have company waiting for him. He’ll have creatures that depend on him, and he’ll have to be better for their sake, even if he can’t figure out how to be better for his own. 

He says as much to Markus one evening. His leave is up, and he’ll be going back to work in the morning. He told the shelter he’d volunteer on the weekends for as long as they let him, though. 

“That’s great, Connor,” Markus says, looking genuinely pleased. 

Connor thinks so, too.

It’s not an instantaneous fix. He still can’t look at the pictures on his desk some days. Some days, he just wants to curl into himself and not think so much. To not care. 

But maybe, little by little, he’s getting better. 

\----

Connor goes to visit Hank. 

“Hi, dad,” Connor says, sitting down in front of the headstone. He sets a beer bottle between him and the stone.

“I just wanted to come talk. I brought your favorite beer, but just the one. You know how bad it is for you when you drink too much.”

Connor pops the cap on the bottle and sets it back down.

“I got a puppy. And a kitten. I know you weren’t fond of cats, but she’s a good girl. She follows me around the house more than the puppy does. I let North name her. I think North is a cat person, but doesn’t want to admit it to anyone.”

Connor pauses. 

“The puppy is a Saint Bernard. I didn’t think I would want another Saint Bernard, but the shelter took one in and I just… I couldn’t not take him. You would love him. He’s stubborn, like you were. He’s already gotten so big. I didn’t realize how fast things grow.”

Connor pulls his LED out of his pocket and sets it at the base of the headstone, next to the beer bottle, before he stands up.

“I still miss you. Everyday. I never told you enough how much everything you did meant to me. You’re the reason I am who I am. I hope you’re proud of me, dad. That’s all I ever wanted, I think, was for you to be proud.”

Connor pats the headstone. “I’ll see you later, okay? Make sure you don’t drink that too fast. It’ll give you a headache.”

Connor puts his hands in his pocket.

He knows it’s in his head, but he swears as he leaves Hank tells him to stop nagging.

Connor smiles to himself.

**Author's Note:**

> D:


End file.
